The Winter King: A Novel of Arthur

by Bernard Cornwell

  ‘No.’

  ‘You should consider it. We may not offer too many earthly delights, but our lives after death are certainly worth having. Not that I could ever persuade Uther of that, but I have hopes of Arthur.’

  I glanced round the feast. ‘No Arthur,’ I said, disappointed that my Lord was not of the cult.

  ‘He was initiated,’ Bedwin said.

  ‘But he doesn’t believe in the Gods,’ I said, repeating Owain’s assertion.

  Bedwin shook his head. ‘Arthur does believe. How can a man not believe in God or Gods? You think Arthur believes that we made ourselves? Or that the world simply appeared by chance? Arthur’s no fool, Derfel Cadarn. Arthur believes, but he keeps his beliefs very silent. That way the Christians think he is one of them, or might be, and the pagans believe the same, and so both serve him the more willingly. And remember, Derfel, Arthur is loved of Merlin, and Merlin, believe me, does not love unbelievers.’

  ‘I miss Merlin.’

  ‘We all miss Merlin,’ Bedwin said calmly, ‘but we can take comfort in his absence, for he would not be otherwhere if Britain was threatened with destruction. Merlin will come when he is needed.’

  ‘You think he isn’t needed now?’ I asked sourly.

  Bedwin wiped his beard with the sleeve of his coat, then drank wine. ‘Some say,’ he said, dropping his voice, ‘that we would be better off without Arthur. That without Arthur there would be peace, but if there’s no Arthur, who protects Mordred? Me?’ He smiled at the thought. ‘Gereint? He’s a good man, few better, but he’s not clever and he can’t make up his mind and he doesn’t want to rule Dumnonia either. It’s Arthur or no one, Derfel. Or rather it’s Arthur or Gorfyddyd. And this war is not lost. Our enemies fear Arthur and so long as he lives, Dumnonia is safe. No, I don’t think Merlin is needed yet.’

  The traitor Ligessac, who was another Christian who saw no conflict between his avowed faith and Mithras’s secret rituals, spoke with me at the feast’s end. I was cold towards him, even though he was a fellow Mithraist, but he ignored my hostility and plucked me by the elbow into a dark corner of the cave. ‘Arthur’s going to lose. You know that, don’t you?’ he said.

  ‘No.’

  Ligessac pulled a shred of meat from between the remains of his teeth. ‘More men from Elmet will come into the war,’ he said. ‘Powys, Elmet and Siluria’ – he ticked the names off on his fingers – ‘united against Gwent and Dumnonia. Gorfyddyd will be the next Pendragon. First we drive the Saxons out of the land east of Ratae, then we come south and finish off Dumnonia. Two years?’

  ‘The feast has gone to your head, Ligessac,’ I told him.

  ‘And my Lord will pay for the services of a man like you.’ Ligessac was delivering a message. ‘My Lord King Gundleus is generous, Derfel, very generous.’

  ‘Tell your Lord King,’ I said, ‘that Nimue of Ynys Wydryn shall have his skull for her drinking vessel, and that I will provide it for her.’ I walked away.

  That spring the war flared again, though less destructively at first. Arthur had paid gold to Oengus Mac Airem, the Irish King of Demetia, to attack the western reaches of Powys and Siluria, and those attacks drained enemies from our northern frontiers. Arthur himself led a war-band to pacify western Dumnonia where Cadwy had declared his tribal lands an independent kingdom, but while he was there Aelle’s Saxons launched a mighty attack on Gereint’s lands. Gorfyddyd, we later learned, had paid the Saxons as we had paid the Irish and Powys’s cash was probably better spent for the Saxons came in a flood that brought Arthur hurrying back from the west where he left Cei, his childhood companion, in charge of the fight against Cadwy’s tattooed tribesmen.

  It was then, with Aelle’s Saxon army threatening to capture Durocobrivis and with Gwent’s forces occupied against both Powys and the northern Saxons and with Cadwy’s undefeated rebellion being encouraged by King Mark of Kernow, that Ban of Benoic sent his summons.

  We all knew that King Ban had only ever permitted Arthur to come to Dumnonia on condition that he returned to Armorica if Benoic was ever in jeopardy. Now, Ban’s messenger claimed, Benoic was in dire danger and King Ban, insisting that Arthur fulfil his oath, was demanding Arthur’s return.

  The news came to us in Durocobrivis. The town had once been a prosperous Roman settlement with lavish baths, a marble justice hall and a fine market place, but now it was an impoverished frontier fort, forever watching east towards the Saxons. The buildings beyond the town’s earth wall had all been burnt by Aelle’s raiders and were never rebuilt, while inside the wall the great Roman structures crumbled to ruin. Ban’s messenger came to us in what remained of the arched hall of the Roman baths. It was night and a fire burned in the pit of the old plunge bath, its smoke churning about the arched ceiling where the wind caught and sucked the smoke out of a small window. We had been eating our evening meal, seated in a circle on the cold floor, and Arthur led Ban’s messenger into the circle’s centre where he scratched a crude map of Dumnonia in the dirt, then scattered red and white mosaic scraps to show where our enemies and friends were placed. Everywhere the red tiles of Dumnonia were being squeezed by the white stone scraps. We had fought that day and Arthur had taken a spear cut on his right cheekbone, not a dangerous wound, but deep enough to crust his cheek in blood. He had been fighting without his helmet, claiming he saw better without the enclosing metal, but if the Saxon had thrust an inch higher and to one side he would have rammed his steel through Arthur’s brain. He had fought on foot, as he usually did, because he was saving his heavy horses for the more desperate battles. A half dozen of his horsemen were mounted each day, but most of the expensive, rare war horses were kept deep in Dumnonia where they were safe from enemy raids. This day, after Arthur had been wounded, our handful of heavy cavalrymen had scattered the Saxon line, killing their chief and sending the survivors back east, but Arthur’s narrow escape had left us all uneasy. King Ban’s messenger, a chief called Bleiddig, only deepened that gloom.

  ‘You see,’ Arthur said to Bleiddig, ‘why I cannot leave?’ He gestured at the red and white scraps.

  ‘An oath is an oath,’ Bleiddig answered bluntly.

  ‘If the Prince leaves Dumnonia,’ Prince Gereint intervened, ‘Dumnonia falls.’ Gereint was a heavy, dull-witted man, but loyal and honest. As Uther’s nephew he had a claim on Dumnonia’s throne, but he never made the claim and was always true to Arthur, his bastard cousin.

  ‘Better that Dumnonia fall than Benoic,’ Bleiddig said, and ignored the angry murmur that followed his words.

  ‘I took an oath to defend Mordred,’ Arthur pointed out.

  ‘You took an oath to defend Benoic,’ Bleiddig answered, shrugging away Arthur’s objection. ‘Bring the child with you.’

  ‘I must give Mordred his kingdom,’ Arthur insisted. ‘If he leaves the kingdom loses its king and its heart. Mordred stays here.’

  ‘And who threatens to take the kingdom from him?’ Bleiddig demanded angrily. The Benoic chieftain was a big man, not unlike Owain and with much of Owain’s brute force. ‘You!’ He pointed scornfully at Arthur. ‘If you had married Ceinwyn there would be no war! If you had married Ceinwyn then not only Dumnonia, but Gwent and Powys would be sending troops to aid my King!’

  Men were shouting and swords were drawn, but Arthur bellowed for silence. A trickle of blood escaped from beneath his wound’s scab and ran down his long, hollow cheek. ‘How long,’ he asked Bleiddig, ‘before Benoic falls?’

  Bleiddig frowned. It was clear he could not guess the answer, but he suggested six months or maybe a year. The Franks, he said, had brought new armies into the east of his country and Ban could not fight them all. Ban’s own army, led by his champion, Bors, was holding the northern border while the men Arthur had left behind, led by his cousin Culhwch, held the southern frontier.

  Arthur was staring at his map of red and white tiles. ‘Three months,’ he said, ‘and I will come. If I can! Three months. But in the meanwhile, Bleiddig, I shall send you a war-b
and of good men.’

  Bleiddig argued, protesting that Arthur’s oath demanded Arthur’s immediate presence in Armorica, but Arthur would not be budged. Three months, he said, or not at all, and Bleiddig had to accept the compromise.

  Arthur gestured for me to walk with him in the colonnaded courtyard that lay next to the hall. There were vats in the small courtyard that stank like a latrine, but he appeared not to notice the stench. ‘God knows, Derfel,’ he said, and I knew he was under strain for using the word ‘God’, just as I noticed he used the singular Christian word though he immediately balanced the score, ‘the Gods know I don’t want to lose you, but I need to send someone who isn’t afraid to break a shield–wall. I need to send you.’

  ‘Lord Prince –’ I began.

  ‘Don’t call me prince,’ he interrupted angrily. ‘I’m not a prince. And don’t argue with me. I have everyone arguing with me. Everyone knows how to win this war except me. Melwas is screaming for men, Tewdric wants me in the north, Cei says he needs another hundred spears, and now Ban wants me! If he spent more money on his army and less on his poets he wouldn’t be in trouble!’

  ‘Poets?’

  ‘Ynys Trebes is a haven of poets,’ he said bitterly, referring to King Ban’s island capital. ‘Poets! We need spearmen, not poets.’ He stopped and leaned against a pillar. He looked more tired than I had ever seen him. ‘I can’t achieve anything,’ he said, ‘until we stop fighting. If I could just talk to Cuneglas, face to face, there might be hope.’

  ‘Not while Gorfyddyd lives,’ I said.

  ‘Not while Gorfyddyd lives,’ he agreed, then went silent and I knew he was thinking of Ceinwyn and Guinevere. Moonlight came through a gap in the colonnade’s roof to touch his bony face with silver. He closed his eyes and I knew he was blaming himself for the war, but what was done could not be undone. A new peace would have to be made and there was only one man who could force that peace on Britain, and that was Arthur himself. He opened his eyes and grimaced. ‘What’s the smell?’ he asked, noticing it at last.

  ‘They bleach cloth here, Lord,’ I explained, and gestured toward the wooden vats that were filled with urine and washed chicken dung to produce the valuable white fabric like the cloaks Arthur himself favoured.

  Arthur would usually have been encouraged at such evidence of industry in a decayed town like Durocobrivis, but that night he just shrugged away the smell and touched the trickle of fresh blood on his cheek. ‘One more scar,’ he said ruefully. ‘I’ll soon have as many as you, Derfel.’

  ‘You should wear your helmet, Lord,’ I said.

  ‘I can’t see right and left when I do,’ he said dismissively. He pushed away from the pillar and gestured for me to walk with him round the arcade. ‘Now listen, Derfel. Fighting Franks is just like fighting Saxons. They’re all Germans, and there’s nothing special about the Franks except that they like to carry throwing spears as well as the usual weapons. So keep your head down when they first attack, but after that it’s just shield–wall against shield–wall. They’re hard fighters, but they drink too much so you can usually out-think them. That’s why I’m sending you. You’re young, but you can think which is more than most of our soldiers do. They just believe it’s enough to get drunk and hack away, but no one will win wars that way.’ He paused and tried to hide a yawn. ‘Forgive me. And for all I know, Derfel, Benoic isn’t in danger at all. Ban is an emotional man’ – he used the description sourly – ‘and he panics easily, but if he loses Ynys Trebes then he’ll break his heart and I’ll have to live with that guilt too. You can trust Culhwch, he’s good. Bors is capable.’

  ‘But treacherous.’ Sagramor spoke from the shadows beside the bleaching vats. He had come from the hall to watch over Arthur.

  ‘Unfair,’ said Arthur.

  ‘He’s treacherous,’ Sagramor insisted in his harsh accent, ‘because he’s Lancelot’s man.’

  Arthur shrugged. ‘Lancelot can be difficult,’ he admitted. ‘He’s Ban’s heir and he likes to have things his own way, but then, so do I.’ He smiled and glanced at me. ‘You can write, can’t you?’

  ‘Yes, Lord,’ I said. We had walked on past Sagramor who stayed in the shadows, his eyes never leaving Arthur. Cats slunk past us, and bats wheeled next to the smoking gable of the big hall. I tried to imagine this stinking place filled with robed Romans and lit by oil-lamps, but it seemed an impossible idea.

  ‘You must write and tell me what’s happening,’ Arthur said, ‘so I don’t have to rely on Ban’s imagination. How’s your woman?’

  ‘My woman?’ I was startled by the question and for a second I thought Arthur was referring to Canna, a Saxon slave girl who kept me company and who was teaching me her dialect that differed slightly from my mother’s native Saxon, but then I realized Arthur had to mean Lunete. ‘I don’t hear from her, Lord.’

  ‘And you don’t ask, eh?’ He shot me an amused grin, then sighed. Lunete was with Guinevere who, in turn, had gone to distant Durnovaria to occupy Uther’s old winter palace. Guinevere had not wanted to leave her pretty new palace near Caer Cadarn, but Arthur had insisted she go deeper into the country to be safer from enemy raiding parties. ‘Sansum tells me Guinevere and her ladies all worship Isis,’ Arthur said.

  ‘Who?’ I asked.

  ‘Exactly.’ He smiled. ‘Isis is a foreign Goddess, Derfel, with her own mysteries; something to do with the moon, I think. At least that’s what Sansum tells me. I don’t think he knows either, but he still says I must stop the cult. He says the mysteries of Isis are unspeakable, but when I ask him what they are, he doesn’t know. Or he won’t say. You’ve heard nothing?’

  ‘Nothing, Lord.’

  ‘Of course,’ Arthur said rather too forcefully, ‘if Guinevere finds solace in Isis then it cannot be bad. I worry about her. I promised her so much, you see, and am giving her nothing. I want to put her father back on his throne, and we will, we will, but it will all take longer than we think.’

  ‘You want to fight Diwrnach?’ I asked, appalled at the idea.

  ‘He’s just a man, Derfel, and can be killed. One day we’ll do it.’ He turned back towards the hall. ‘You’re going south. I can’t spare you more than sixty men – God knows it isn’t enough if Ban really is in trouble – but take them over the sea, Derfel, and put yourself under Culhwch’s command. Maybe you can travel through Durnovaria? Send me news of my dear Guinevere?’

  ‘Yes, Lord,’ I said.

  ‘I shall give you a gift for her. Maybe that jewelled collar the Saxon leader was wearing? You think she’d like that?’ He asked the question anxiously.

  ‘Any woman would,’ I said. The collar was Saxon work, crude and heavy, but still beautiful. It was a necklace of golden plates that were splayed like the sun’s rays and studded with gems.

  ‘Good! Take it to Durnovaria for me, Derfel, then go and save Benoic’

  ‘If I can,’ I said grimly.

  ‘If you can,’ Arthur echoed, ‘for my conscience’s sake.’ He added the last words quietly, then kicked a scrap of clay tile that skittered away from his booted foot and startled a cat that arched its back and hissed at us. ‘Three years ago,’ he said softly, ‘it all seemed so easy.’

  But then came Guinevere.

  Next day, with sixty men, I went south.

  ‘Did he send you to spy on me?’ Guinevere demanded with a smile.

  ‘No, Lady.’

  ‘Dear Derfel,’ she mocked me, ‘so like my husband.’

  That surprised me. ‘Am I?’

  ‘Yes, Derfel, you are. Only he’s much cleverer. Do you like this place?’ She gestured about the courtyard.

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ I said. The villa in Durnovaria was, of course, Roman, though in its day it had served as Uther’s winter palace. God knows it would not have been beautiful when he occupied it, but Guinevere had restored the building to something of its former elegance. The courtyard was colonnaded like the one in Durocobrivis, but here all the roof tiles were in place and all the c
olumns were lime-washed. Guinevere’s symbol was painted on the walls inside the arcade in a repeating pattern of stags crowned with crescent moons. The stag was her father’s symbol, the moon her addition, and the painted roundels made a pretty show. White roses grew in beds where small tiled channels ran with water. Two hunting falcons stood on perches, their hooded heads twitching as we walked around the Roman arcade. Statues stood about the courtyard, all of naked men and women, while on plinths beneath the colonnade were bronze heads festooned with flowers. The heavy Saxon necklace I had brought from Arthur now hung about the neck of one of those bronze heads. Guinevere had toyed with the gift for a few seconds, then frowned. ‘It’s clumsy work, is it not?’ she had asked me.

  ‘Prince Arthur thinks it beautiful, Lady, and worthy of you.’

  ‘Dear Arthur.’ She had said it carelessly, then selected the ugly bronze head of a scowling man and placed the necklace around its neck. ‘That’ll improve him,’ she said of the bronze head. ‘I call him Gorfyddyd. He looks like Gorfyddyd, don’t you think so?’

  ‘He does, Lady,’ I said. The bust did have something of Gorfyddyd’s dour, unhappy face.

  ‘Gorfyddyd is a beast,’ Guinevere said. ‘He tried to take my virginity.’

  ‘He did?’ I managed to say when I had recovered from the shock of the revelation.

  ‘Tried and failed,’ she said firmly. ‘He was drunk. He slobbered all over me. I was reeking with slobber, all down here.’ She brushed her breasts. She was wearing a simple white linen shift that fell in straight folds from her shoulders to her feet. The linen must have been breathtakingly expensive for the fabric was so tantalizingly thin that if I stared at her, which I tried not to do, it was possible to see hints of her nakedness beneath the fine cloth. A golden image of the moon-crowned stag hung around her neck, her earrings were amber drops set in gold while on her left hand was a gold ring crowned with Arthur’s bear and cut with a lover’s cross. ‘Slobber, slobber,’ she said delightedly, ‘so when he’d finished, or to be exact when he’d finished trying to begin and was sobbing about how he meant to make me his Queen and how he would make me the richest queen in Britain, I went to Iorweth and had him make me a spell against an unwanted lover. I didn’t tell the Druid it was the King, of course, though it probably wouldn’t have mattered if I had because Iorweth would do anything if you smiled at him, so he made the charm and I buried it, then I made my father tell Gorfyddyd that I’d buried a death-charm against the daughter of a man who’d tried to rape me. Gorfyddyd knew who I meant and he dotes on that insipid little Ceinwyn, so he avoided me after that.’ She laughed. ‘Men are such fools!’